


Amaranthine

by evodestiny



Series: Ari/Neptune Content [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Season of the Hunt angst, There's Shippy Content If You Squint, left open to interpretation because i haven't decided which of my au/timelines this fits into, neptune you absolute simp, no beta we die like men, sagira is gone and i am fucking DISTRAUGHT, the guardian cries, this is entirely self-indulgent my dudes, this whole relationship between them is my comfort blanket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29815050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evodestiny/pseuds/evodestiny
Summary: Neptune wants to protect his Guardian. Artemis wants to protect her Ghost. They find a way to meet in the middle.
Relationships: Ghost & Guardian (Destiny), Ghost/Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Ari/Neptune Content [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191686
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Amaranthine

**Author's Note:**

> amaranthine - (n.) undying, immortal, everlasting

Artemis is sitting in the pilot seat of her ship, one knee curled up to her chest for her to rest her chin on it. The ship is hovering in space, just out past the edge of the Moon. The sun will be rising over the Earth soon.

Ari hasn't said a word for hours.

Neptune keeps glancing at her; he knows she notices. But she doesn't say anything. He's hovering in the air beside her, waiting for the sunrise, but mostly concerned about what must be going through her head. Uldren is back. Osiris is Lightless. Sagira is— _gone_. There are a million things he wants to say to her, and there's not a single way he can think of to ask any of them.

So, he starts small.

_"Artemis?"_

Ari lifts her head and looks at him. Her eyes are clear, at least—not cloudy or far-off. She's grounded right now, which he takes as a good sign. But he doesn't say anything else. He knows she hates being silent, she can't go a long time without blurting what's on her mind. He expects her to say something about Uldren— _The Crow_ —or Osiris, or Xivu Arath, or _something,_ but instead, she asks a question he hadn't calculated the likelihood of at all.

"You wouldn't do it, would you?"

He blinks at her, confused. _"Do what?"_

"What... what Sagira did." Artemis swallows hard and looks back out the window, and Neptune's shell spins with worried _clicks._ "You... you wouldn't, right? You wouldn't sacrifice yourself like that."

 _"I... I don't understand,"_ he says, partly because he doesn't know what to say, partly because she'd caught him off-guard, and mostly because it's true. He isn't sure what she's expecting him to say.

Ari shakes her head, still not looking at him. "If it was a choice," she asks slowly, "between your life or mine... who would you save? I know—" she hesitates, staring down at her hands. "I know you don't like it when I say I'd die for you, but—please. I want to know."

Neptune hesitates. He's thought about it, sure, of course he has—but it had always seemed so theoretical. It strikes him that he's never really, truly, one hundred percent considered the possibility of having to die for her. Of her dying for him. There were moments, of course, when he thought he had lost her—The Red War, when he'd scoured the City for days, searching hopelessly for her Light. Their encounter with Xol, after Nokris, when he couldn't find her under layers of broken ice. When the Darkness had possessed his shell.

But in the wake of Sagira's sacrifice, it suddenly seems so _real._ This isn't some awful fantasy, some worst-case scenario; this is a _real_ danger that exists, and he doesn't know if he can protect her from it.

But despite all of that, somehow, the answer is really very simple.

 _"Of course I would,"_ he says finally, holding her gaze. _"I wouldn't even have to think about it."_

Artemis is silent for a long moment. Her brow furrows, and now Neptune is slightly concerned, because the way she shuts her eyes and sighs makes him think that somehow he did something wrong. She looks back at him, and Neptune is shocked to find that there are tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"I was worried you were going to say that," she whispers, voice bordering on the edge of cracking, and Neptune tries to move forward, to curl up against her shoulder, to try and help her, but she holds up a hand to stop him.

"I want you to promise me," she continues, "That you won't do that."

Neptune's shell flares a little bit around him. _"What? Artemis—"_

 _"Promise me,"_ she repeats, more firmly, despite his protests, "That you wouldn't do that. You're not allowed to die for me, okay? You don't get to sacrifice yourself for me. If it's a choice between your life or mine, you save yourself."

_"I don't want to—"_

_"Please,"_ she cries, and something in her tone shocks him into silence. Her eyes are wide, tears catching in her lashes, and she angrily wipes them away. "Please," she repeats, looking back at him. He's never heard her like this. "Don't do that for me. I don't want—I _can't_ live because you died. I _never_ want to live because you traded your life for mine. Don't—don't make me live without you, okay? Don't do that to me. _Please,_ Neptune."

Neptune is stunned silent, even the spinning of his shell ceasing as he takes in what she's saying. He doesn't want to—he doesn't know _how_ to—

But she's asked him to. And he can never say no to her.

 _"...Okay,"_ he says, very quietly, when he finally finds his voice. _"Okay. I promise."_ And he doesn't know if he means it, but relief breaks across her face, and she manages a small smile as she reaches out to him.

"C'mere," she murmurs, and he immediately lets her take his shell between her hands and pull him in close to her chest. He curls up against her and makes a small humming sound that she smiles at, and maybe this one lie is okay to tell. She tucks both knees up into the seat with her, and despite everything, she's curled up so tightly around him that he thinks maybe nothing could ever hurt him, not if he just stayed here with her forever. Sometimes—most times—he wonders how hard it would be to just... run off to the other side of Saturn and not have to worry about slaying Gods or being the Hero or talking to the Darkness. How hard would it be, really, for them to just take a ship and go? ( _Maybe we can go see Neptune,_ she had laughed the first time he'd mentioned it. _One day we will,_ he told her, and she had laughed again. He liked making her laugh. _One day we will,_ she echoed, and he liked that even better. He like how she said it like a promise.) _  
_

It's a long moment before either of them speak—for a while they simply sit there, while she taps her fingers on his shell and he hides his optic against her chest and doesn't have to say _I'm here,_ because she knows.

(They both know. They're always going to be there for each other. Above all else, that is the most important promise, the one that, no matter what comes their way, he will never break. _We protect each other._ )

"The sun is coming up," she says quietly. Neptune shifts in her hands, twists his shell around she's still holding him but he can see up over her knees. Sure enough, just over the edge of the Earth is a glimmer of golden light that spills over the crust of the navy planet and floods the space around them with orange and red and white. The Earth takes on a brilliant blue-green wash of color, copper light flooding the ship, and when he looks at her, her normally silver eyes have turned to molten gold in the reflecting light.

Tell her. Just tell her.

Why can't he tell her?

(What does he even _want_ to tell her? He knows there's a right thing to say here. But he also doesn't know how to be honest with her, completely; not right now. Because—because of _course_ he would, if he had to, and of course it would ruin him if she died, permanently, for him. How could he ever bring himself to leave her to die? How could _she_ ever think that he'd be able to?

Artemis is not stupid, not by any means. She knows that he could raise another after her. But she also has to know that he never would. He would stay with her. He _wants_ to stay with her. Even knowing that there are others, that there could be more Guardians who _deserve_ to join the fight, to have a second chance—he would not be the one to raise them. There's no other Guardian for him.)

He has to say something. He can't leave this off on a false promise. _Tell her._

Neptune lets out a synthetic breath and tilts back to lean against her. He feels her look at him, but he keeps his eye focused on the sunrise. _"I..."_ he starts, stops, and tries again. _"I'd never let it come to that,"_ he says finally. _"You know I wouldn't."_

Ari breathes out, long and slow, and then leans down to press her lips where the tips of her nails meet his shell. "I know," she whispers.

 _"I'd save you."_ He hopes his voice isn't shaking _. "I'd find a way to save you."_

Despite everything, she presses a tiny smile against his shell.

"I'd save you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> i lied it's VERY shippy there is no squinting necessary . come bother me on tumblr! i'm @eosofspades


End file.
